Home by The River

This film tells the story of Class 4, Grade 9—a notorious “last-place class” at school due to its high number of failing students. Their leader, Ba Wang Chaoguo, is seen as the ringleader of this so-called “herd.” One day, the school brings in a highly unconventional art teacher whose eccentric methods baffle the administration but unexpectedly inspire Ba Wang and his classmates, giving them a new sense of purpose and hope for the future.

This is a childhood story which took place in a village of the central Shaanxi plain in the late 1990s. In the context that students were judged by their grades, Ba-Wang Chaoguo, a student at a primary school, was a bad student in the eyes of his teachers and parents. Not recognized by his parents and teachers, Ba-Wang Chaoguo saw a big tree in the field as his own "Home". And he hid all of his favorite things in the tree. The nature of child caused many conflicts between Ba-Wang Chaoguo and adults' world until one day Miss Fen came to work as a teacher. Miss Fen appointed him as the librarian of the class. Also he became a good friend of the female teacher and his "Home" also became the female teacher's "Home". However, the good times didn't last long. The preferential treatment he received was changed after the arrival of Miss Fen's boyfriend.

WU, a desperate man struggling between survival and kindness. Trying to repay his own debts by all means necessary, he blockaded the Shaanxi rural lodging of siblings LI, hoping to force their father home to repay his loan to WU. Despite causing him endless headaches, the siblings’ simple-mindedness as well as naturally-born compassion is transformative on WU. Ran away from other creditors who successfully tracked him down, WU re-appeared at the LI’s shabby lodging on Chinese New Year’s Eve and made an unexpected choice.